Gungrave: Overdose announced @ Gaming Target

Written by John Scalzo on June 18, 2004

News: Mastiff plans to bring the high energy sequel to America this fall. We have the first screens as well.

With a flurry of announcements and releases over the last several weeks, Mastiff has been setting themselves up asаTHE publishing house for quirky and unique Japanese games. The company, who's President is known as the "Head Woof", has announced today that they are bringing Gungrave: Overdose to America for the PS2. It should ship to stores early in the fall this year, probably around September.

The original GunGrave was not thought of favorably here at Gaming Target. It's dose of run and gun gameplay was fun for several minutes, but the game quickly devolved into a short and easy trek to the end.

Mastiff has recognized these problems and has promised that Gungrave: Overdose will be chock full of more challenge, more story and more action. They have also attempted to fix that pesky lack of replay problem by having two new characters join the coffin toting Beyond-The-Grave. Juji Kabane isаa "blind, foul-mouthed, and perpetually angry swordsman who wears a shabby overcoat and carries a pair of gunblades".аOn the other hand, Rocketbilly Redcadillac isа"a rock star who wears a red riding jacket and sports a slick ducktail". Both are probably very stylish I'm sure.

One feature of the original Gungrave that Mastiff plans to implement in Overdose is the Artistic Points meter. The Artisitc Points meter builds with each succesive and stylish kill (called "Beats") your anti-hero performs and eventually the points can be traded in for power-ups and special moves.

To ensure a stylish look, Gungrave: Overdose features character design and visuals from noted anime artists Yasuhiro Nightow (Trigun) and Kosuke Fujishima (Sakura Wars) and a soundtrack composed by Tsuneo Imahori (Trigun, Hajime No Ippo). You can check out that stylish look here as we have the first 17 screens of Gungrave: Overdose.а

Rounding out theаassault on the senses the Gungrave team has planned is the release of DVDs of the Gungrave anime. For more details on that you can check out GungraveDVD.com.

We'll have more on Gungrave: Overdoseаas it develops.